Are You Embracing Recruitment's Black Hole?

Do you ask candidates for feedback on your recruitment process? Not just the successful ones but the unsuccessful as well?If you do, how in-depth do you go and how do you use the data to positively impact future recruitment? And if you don’t, you’re missing out...

Many people talk about how to manage recruitment’s black hole, understand it or even outwit it but what about how to embrace it and all that it can do for your company as a whole? In the current economic climate the application to vacancy ratio is only increasing. This poses many difficulties for recruiters but, with these difficulties, also comes an opportunity to truly understand what candidates are thinking, what motivates them to apply and why they have chosen a specific company.Answers to these questions can be found by embracing the fictitious ‘black hole’ through managing candidate feedback.

So what are companies losing by not measuring candidate feedback?

The following points highlight some of the core losses amplified by an unregulated ‘black hole’:

Competitive Advantage –By understanding your candidate motivations you can work to provide a recruitment process and employee environment that will exceed their expectations and draw in the best talent.

This black hole sucks in data and feedback that is beneficial both to the candidate, the recruiter and, consequently, the company. Its draining affect will not only be felt by HRbut also within marketing, sales and the company’s brand.

Measuring feedback and monitoring the black hole is not only essential from a candidate perspective, unregulated negative feedback will also impact your consumers’ expectations and choices. Jason Kerr, founder and CEO of QuietAgent, explains this further:

“The black hole of recruitment isn’t just an HR problem, it’s a marketing problem as well.Today’s job seekers are current and prospective customers, as well as being future job seekers. One major bank discovered that two-thirds of its applicants were account holders at the bank. Imagine the damage that can be done to a company’s brand, its relationship with its customers, and its future revenue, by perpetuating the black hole.”